Alice Nutter, Both of Them

Men of Pendle, you called Alice Nutter a witch
 You hung her from a tree across the fell
 And now you folk full of chatter call me a bitch

 Though you knew after thrashing with a switch
 No witch could she be and could cast no spell
 Men of Pendle, you called Alice Nutter a witch

 You cause my ears to itch and nose to twitch
 As you chatter at my dress and rebel yell
 And now you folk full of chatter call me a bitch

 You cut her hair and dragged her thru the ditch
 Stripped whipped you tried to drown her in a well
 Men of Pendle, you called Alice Nutter a witch

 All based on gossip and lies from Rose Smith – snitch
 We die, we curse you, from the earth we  now dwell
 Men of Pendle, you called Alice Nutter a witch
 And now you folk full of chatter call me a bitch

1. I wrote this poem as an exercise in the form ‘villanelle’. It one of the few poems of mine that rhymes, I don’t usually like the conformity of form. Alice was one of the people accused and tried for witchcraft in the Pendle area. She died in 1612 at the gallows. In the 1980’s a young punky anarchist from the Pendle area took the name and has used it ever since, she still lives and writes.